they still work well, plus they're the only ones without spending $2500+ that will hold more than one internal hard drive.

The G4 hit the sweet spot of Apple computers for businesses:
1) They weren't overly expensive (quite affordable, actually),
2) The PPC chips were stable and damn good,
3) They were expandable (multiple hard drives, new ethernet/port/graphics card slots, memory easy to get to),
4) No built-in monitor meant that you could use whichever one you wanted, and didn't need to go through expensive repair/replacement if a monitor failed,
5) Didn't get so hot they needed 7 internal fans and the power supplies didn't always get fried like the G5s,
6) Not as fragile as laptops, and were too heavy and bulky to "disappear,"
7) Did I mention multiple hard drives?
8) They are good, solid workhorses that run a good, solid operating system.

So, in short, the PPC support from Mac will have to continue for at least the 3 or 4 years.

If you did, and you still have the problem, either there is some other software that is corrupted, a third party app is causing a problem, or there is a bug in the update, which happens.

Prefs can get corrupted. It could be from a problem with the Brightness.monitorPanel, or the Contrast.monitorPanel in the System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resourses folder. But I can't explain what to do with confidence that you won't get lost trying it.

It could also be the Display.prefPane.

There are a couple of others, but I'm not sure how to tell you to go about checking them out. If you remove them, they won't be re-created as a plist usually will be, and your system will be screwed.

same for snow leopard. i wont buy it for a month.
I leant my lesson
and
top left click apple logo and then click on software update

Even though Apple has Software Update, it's always a good idea to download the combo update, and install from there.

The smaller one usually updates some of these files, leaves others alone, and replaces others. It can be a mess.

The combo update simply replaces everything all at once, and is safer.

I would do that, and then fix permissions. You can try permissions first, but I don't think that will help.

I know that some people razz me for saying this, but people sometimes have some disk corruption, or problems that they aren't aware of. If you do, that could cause a problem. The updates don't do the thorough job of diskchecking that an upgrade does (though, just to be on the safe side I do check the disk first).

The update weighs in at 165MB in Software Update, and is on the Apple downloads page as well at 274MB. As with all system updates, be sure to back up your system before applying this one, especially with a bootable or full system restore solution such as Time Machine or a cloning option. When applying this update, the computer will restart to the grey Apple screen with the spinning wheel, and will then reboot again. While the update may take some time to apply, allow it to complete on its own and do not interrupt the process by restarting the system.

As an extra precaution against errors that may arise when updating, we recommend you take the following steps when applying the update. Performing these steps after updating can also help fix update problems if they arise:

Download the "combo" updater for this update (available here)
Reboot into Safe Mode
Run a permissions fix and drive check on the boot drive with Disk Utility
Apply the update and reboot
Run a permissions fix again with Disk Utility
UPDATE: Direct downloads are now available:

Time Machine and other USB drives don't show up on the desktop anymore. You have to open finder and navigate to them. Also, files on the desktop don't appear on the desktop any longer. Those must be navigated to in Finder as well.

Safari has crashed twice in the hour since I updated my system. No stalling or anything. Just normal operating loading non-resource intensive pages, and then suddenly the program quits.

iTunes is absolutely FUBAR. It tells me "The folder 'iTunes' cannot be found or created, and is required. The default location for this folder is inside the 'Music' folder." That prompt is given despite the presence of that iTunes folder. The same one that was there before the update. It won't even launch the application. It just gives the prompt and only lets you select "OK." To make matters worse, I can't even CMD-shift-4 the bitch to grab quick screen caps to share with folks.

Time Machine and other USB drives don't show up on the desktop anymore. You have to open finder and navigate to them. Also, files on the desktop don't appear on the desktop any longer. Those must be navigated to in Finder as well.

Safari has crashed twice in the hour since I updated my system. No stalling or anything. Just normal operating loading non-resource intensive pages, and then suddenly the program quits.

iTunes is absolutely FUBAR. It tells me "The folder 'iTunes' cannot be found or created, and is required. The default location for this folder is inside the 'Music' folder." That prompt is given despite the presence of that iTunes folder. The same one that was there before the update. It won't even launch the application. It just gives the prompt and only lets you select "OK." To make matters worse, I can't even CMD-shift-4 the bitch to grab quick screen caps to share with folks.

If you did, and you still have the problem, either there is some other software that is corrupted, a third party app is causing a problem, or there is a bug in the update, which happens.

Prefs can get corrupted. It could be from a problem with the Brightness.monitorPanel, or the Contrast.monitorPanel in the System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resourses folder. But I can't explain what to do with confidence that you won't get lost trying it.

It could also be the Display.prefPane.

There are a couple of others, but I'm not sure how to tell you to go about checking them out. If you remove them, they won't be re-created as a plist usually will be, and your system will be screwed.

Hopefully, it will be something simpler that will work itself out.

I did repair permissions. I checked those files but they seemed to be last modified on sep 24, 2007 1:46 AM, the Display.prefPane on Sep 24, 2007 1:07 AM. I don't think they were modified with this update.

I even repaired permissions twice, but the problem persists. Anyone out there having the same issues?

I know I've backed up with Time Machine several times in the last week. When I went to install this update, it spent about an hour saying it was backing up my files. Now when I look in Time Machine, the latest available system restore is from freaking May. I can't even restore and try again.

I did repair permissions. I checked those files but they seemed to be last modified on sep 24, 2007 1:46 AM, the Display.prefPane on Sep 24, 2007 1:07 AM. I don't think they were modified with this update.

I even repaired permissions twice, but the problem persists. Anyone out there having the same issues?

I know I've backed up with Time Machine several times in the last week. When I went to install this update, it spent about an hour saying it was backing up my files. Now when I look in Time Machine, the latest available system restore is from freaking May. I can't even restore and try again.

All you're talking about is backing up. That's a good first step.

The second is to check your HDD. Then to fix permissions.

Then you go and download the combo update and install it. And then last, you check permissions again.

Did you do all of that, or did you just do the back-up and install from the Software Update panel?

Actually, I think the article is trying to say 10.5.8 is possibly the *very last ever* Leopard update.

Which a lot of posters here disagree with. I think there will be 10.5.9 around the time/ soon after Snow Leopard is released. Then, there could be a 10.5.10 early next year as the *very last ever so long and goodbye* Leopard update.

Just my humble onion. I mean opinion.

I would imagine. Leopard 10.5 is the last OS that still runs on PPC hardware, so it should have a relatively long life. Which means at least security updates should be available for it.

It is obviously a good idea for some people to install early — the benefit is to them if there are no problems and to slower adopters if there are.

This is a case where the Kantian categorical imperative doesn't work: if no one updates early then there would be no benefits to updating later.

People who update later should be less smug about it — they are essentially parasitizing those who updated earlier than themselves.

Woah, you're thinking way too hard about this. Parasitizing? I Kant believe you call it that.

Of course someone has to go first. Every population has its uptake curve, there's always going to be an early adopter. It's more like quantum physics than philosophy.

The people that have less to lose are probably not going to be so cautious. However, if you're in the middle of a big project, probably should wait until the project is done first.

At any rate, at the very least, make a bootable clone of your system first, unplug it and have at the update, at least there's almost no risk, if it goes bad, boot from the backup. A program like SuperDuper can do that for you with a spare drive.

I just did the System Update and rocked on. In the past if updates had to do with a certain application that was running, like something from iLife or iWork, it would prompt me to quit the program. I assumed that I'd get a prompt if I needed to end any processes before continuing with an update. Thanks for the info. I won't make that mistake again.

I downloaded the combo update and reinstalled. iTunes runs fine again, and so do the other functions I complained of. The only problem is that the Spotlight icon at the top right corner has remained active, telling me that it is indexing my drive, for an inordinate period of time. Several minutes.

I'm running the "Verify Disk Permissions" again to make sure everything is good to go.

I just did the System Update and rocked on. In the past if updates had to do with a certain application that was running, like something from iLife or iWork, it would prompt me to quit the program. I assumed that I'd get a prompt if I needed to end any processes before continuing with an update. Thanks for the info. I won't make that mistake again.

I downloaded the combo update and reinstalled. iTunes runs fine again, and so do the other functions I complained of. The only problem is that the Spotlight icon at the top right corner has remained active, telling me that it is indexing my drive, for an inordinate period of time. Several minutes.

I'm running the "Verify Disk Permissions" again to make sure everything is good to go.

I know I've backed up with Time Machine several times in the last week. When I went to install this update, it spent about an hour saying it was backing up my files. Now when I look in Time Machine, the latest available system restore is from freaking May. I can't even restore and try again.

This is why TimeMachine quite frankly in my opinion sucks.

Want the best method? Clone your boot drive, the whole frigging thing whenever you have a sound and and stable configuration. Carbon Copy Cloner is donationware and reliable.

Hard drives are cheap, so have two clones, one set back a month or the last OS update and one done every week or every two weeks.

Clones are "hold option" bootable, which makes it real easy to boot from and recover, repair and/or simply reverse clone.

Hard drive crashes one morning? Just boot from the clone and you can get online in the time it takes to boot. Can't do that with Time Machine and a OS X install disk alone.

Naturally clone your present configuration before a OS update and this mess would have been avoided, you control when to clone, thus you know when and what clone to use.

Backup your files to a USB drive or two daily and then your set.

Look in the Genius help section of AppleInsider for my cloning method.

Keep a very detailed and updated copy of all your product codes, related information and disks/websites and passwords in a safe and secure place to facilitate the speedy recovery in case you need to do a complete reinstall of OS X and apps from original sources (more secure).

You should do this regardless once a year just to clean out anything or something that may have invaded your system before a patch was issued via applicaitons (most likely method)

Use ClamXav, it does catch a rare thing once in a while.

Keep your hard drive less than 50% filled for best performance, it starts to degrade more than 50%.

Whenever you start using a brand new drive, always, always DiskUtility>Erase with Zero option a brand new drive. It maps off any bad sectors and improves reliability of data and OS.

The danger is that we sleepwalk into a world where cabals of corporations control not only the mainstream devices and the software on them, but also the entire ecosystem of online services around...

I thought Time Machine could take care of a drive crash. Well, in a way. I thought you could just install a new drive, load the OS to that, then restore from Time Machine to get your system to the former settings.

I'll have to look into those cloning applications. Fortunately my system was able to be restored to normal using the method melgross posted from maxfixit.com, but I'll make sure to keep this stuff in mind for the future.

I figured I'd just update tonight since I wasn't doing anything else. In the future I'll ensure I create a clone of the boot drive and disconnect the peripherals before a system update. I think I am also going to download the updates separately rather than using System Update. Hopefully I'll avoid future issues by taking those steps.

Had one issue with the update on my original Mac Pro - I lost a gig of RAM (fortunately only temporarily). There was only one reboot after the update and after I logged back in two of the original four 512MB DIMMs weren't showing up in System Profiler. They were the only two DIMMs in Riser B. The 1GB two third-party DIMMs and the two Apple 512MB DIMMs in Riser A were fine. I shut down and restarted manually and all six DIMMs were there again.

The first commandment of ALL religions is to provide a comfortable living for the priesthood.

I just did the System Update and rocked on. In the past if updates had to do with a certain application that was running, like something from iLife or iWork, it would prompt me to quit the program. I assumed that I'd get a prompt if I needed to end any processes before continuing with an update. Thanks for the info. I won't make that mistake again.

I downloaded the combo update and reinstalled. iTunes runs fine again, and so do the other functions I complained of. The only problem is that the Spotlight icon at the top right corner has remained active, telling me that it is indexing my drive, for an inordinate period of time. Several minutes.

I'm running the "Verify Disk Permissions" again to make sure everything is good to go.

I also want to stress the importance of using Melgross's and MacTripper's upgrade guide above. Works for me every time, and actually, I've never had anything ever go wrong with an update... ever.

Now going to do the upgrade to my early 2006 MacPro production station. I read a comment at Macworld that the nvidea drivers have also been upgraded. I also have been experiencing some crashes in Photoshop CS4 lately, although I do think it's more likely from a plugin not playing nice with the others(?) But who knows?

Looking forward to SL though. Gonna be interesting to see performance (gains hopefully) or if it even works with CS4.

Knowing what you are talking about would help you understand why you are so wrong. By "Realistic" - AI Forum Member

did something dopey (in retrospect, seemed a valid idea at the time) and tried to command "kill" (using PIDs from command ps x) processes that were not crucial (mostly ARD VNC)

after some ARD processes would not die (they must be set to restart on exit) tried "logout" from Apple menu. At this point the computer went into blue logout screen with spinning image (same as startup rotating lines under apple on a grey screen, but on blue -apple) for a long time about 10 minutes so did something even more dopey and pressed power button until shutdown and it turned on normally.

logged in as root

ran 10.5.8 combo update

ran Flip4Mac update

restarted from Apple menu (restarted ONCE by itself [2 times total], this I've seen with every update in Tiger and Leopard, seems normal MO to me)

logged in as root

checked permissions

logged out from root

logged in with Admin account 501 (took longer than normal)

manually told TM to "back up now" (took a long time "preparing", reported 2GB backup OK)

ran all my usual Apps

wrote this report

I feel everything snappy as ever (I keep a very neat system) and don't expect any problems. Only if I have any I'll post again with details

Now going to do the upgrade to my early 2006 MacPro production station.

So once again... a total success and no problems. Before writing this, I did a few checks... and yes, everything appears to be "Snappier" ... also CS4 Suite working great... also a little faster(?), however, only time and production tells the true story.

NOTE: Before the update, as always I did a permission repair, and assorted Quicktime components (resources, frameworks, prefs, etc.) as well as iTunes permissions were wrong and changed. Suspicious or odd, is that when I repaired perms AFTER the update, the very same files were once again repaired, always with "...should be -rw-r--r--, they are lrw-r--r--."

Anybody with an answer to that? Definitely the problem with the poster "iokjhguj" or something like that.

Also, my drives were listed backwards in order of importance, rather than with the Macintosh HD (OS drive) being first as before. Now it's on the bottom of the list. After checking System Prefs, I chose the Mac HD as the start-up, and locked the panel (for now anyway). After a restart, now the drives are listed in alphabetical order. Not exactly as before since I have a drive named Mac Data... but I guess it doesn't matter(?)... or?

Knowing what you are talking about would help you understand why you are so wrong. By "Realistic" - AI Forum Member

All of them rebooted twice. The only glitch was the white MB which at first prompted me that the update couldn't be verified. But a second update worked without problems.
I also did, because of what I saw here, a permission repair on all macs.

I see no advantage to updating early. This talk about parasites is silly.

If there are people who just HAVE to be first, we can't stop them. There are those who do it the wrong way too. We can't stop them either.

That doesn't meant that it's the right thing to do.

Have you updated already?

The term 'parasite' is something of a technical term in mathematical ecology it has the usual meaning but not the pejorative connotations. But the general point stands: if some don't go first no one can go second. Those who go second get to watch what happens to those who go first: in that sense they are parasitizing on them. That doesn't mean they are wrong.

But I agree with JeffDM: whether you go first or delay upgrading is a rational decision you should make depending on your current needs, whether you will risk an on-going project, etc.

And yes I upgraded, because I have a back up computer which I could turn to if things went pear-shaped. Mostly, however, I am risk-averse. My general point was just that everyone cannot be risk-averse.

AppleInsider = Apple-in-cider.It's a joke!

I've used macs since 1985 when I typed up my first research paper. Never used anything else never wanted to.